Got my car back.

There is no sweeter feeling than unhindered mobility, especially after you’ve been traveling solely on the kindness of strangers for a while. Trust me. The car looks brand new, and so naturally I’m petrified to drive the thing, lest I smash it up again. It’s almost too shiny and perfect for me to be comfortable behind the wheel. I know, the depths of my neuroses know no bounds…

As for the computer, well, that’s another story. Suffice it to say that you’ll probably have to endure one more of these ultra-late Sunday columns before I get back on track. I figure there are two big new releases next week (Dream Theater’s Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and the Chemical Brothers’ Come With Us), so I should be able to do one on Sunday and one on Wednesday on my fully healed word cruncher. I believe that saying things out loud helps them to come true, so I include this tentative schedule in this week’s missive in the hopes that the universe gets the hint.

Thanks for your patience. With any luck, you’ll be getting Tuesday Morning on Wednesday evening again before long. (Only in my world does that make a reassuring amount of sense.)

* * * * *

Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor is so far ahead of the curve he’s caught up with his own backlash. It’s so fashionable to hate him that the bleeding-edge alternative critics have gone back to praising him again as if megahit “Closer” had never happened. The people who approach Reznor from a musical standpoint, meaning those who aren’t looking for someone in black fishnets to define their vague alienation for them, have never stopped praising his work, however. Reznor remains one of our most talented sonic architects, and thanks to a few MTV hits, he’s also our only fully-funded one.

Here are the facts. In 1989, Reznor, with a little album called Pretty Hate Machine, popularized a certain computer-driven sound that had become known as industrial. That record has always sounded cheap and clangy, but it influenced the creation of mainstream industrial acts the same way the first Velvet Underground album influenced garage rock. Almost every idiot with a sequencer who heard this record started a band, or rather, a “band,” clogging the airwaves with barely musical depresso-montages. Reznor himself has never done another album like it.

In 1992, the reclusive Reznor returned with Broken, a six-song EP that introduced layered, noisy guitars to the equation. Broken is a merciless 25-minute burst of rage that, again, influenced hundreds of less talented hacks like Gravity Kills to start screaming and overloading their tracks with noisy mayhem. Broken retains an artfulness that still sets it far above the oceans of imitators, even though, again, Reznor has never done another album like it.

Instead, he embarked on a quirky and satisfying artistic journey with 1994’s The Downward Spiral, a diseased look inside the mind of a violent criminal. Rarely has such a difficult and uncompromising work yielded such a popular hit single, but “Closer” really put Reznor on the map, which naturally fueled cries of sell-out. How anyone can listen to The Downward Spiral and hear sell-out is beyond me. It’s a deeply emotional and complex album, filled with off-kilter sonic constructions that constantly threaten to collapse upon themselves. From a purely musical standpoint, it’s a modern masterpiece.

1999’s double-disc follow-up, The Fragile, was even better – a sprawling, thematically linked stunner that sounded like the culmination of all of Reznor’s disparate musical threads. In this age of downloadable hit singles, it’s impressive enough that such a high-profile artist decided to release a 100-minute work that cannot be successfully separated or broken down. The Fragile is an all-or-not-at-all proposition, and it rewards complete listens like few albums from the ’90s do.

All of which is a lengthy way of stating that Reznor deserves every ounce of respect he’s given. His journey has been an utterly fascinating one so far, and he’s one of a handful of modern artists who reveals more of himself with each subsequent release. Just when you think he’s through surprising you, he jolts you again with something utterly unexpected.

Which brings us to his new two-disc set, And All That Could Have Been. It’s a strange, yet oddly fitting title for an overview of older material that brings new emotions into focus. As advertised, And All That Could Have Been contains a live album, Reznor’s first, and it provides a terrific sampling of material from all four albums. The live band hasn’t changed in 10 years – it’s still Reznor, Charlie Clouser, Robin Finck, Jerome Dillon and Danny Lohner. What has changed from that disastrous first Lollapalooza tour is the volume of emotion NIN brings to the material.

The live album documents last year’s Fragility 2.0 tour, voted by many music publications as the best tour of the year. Yes, the band plays with programmed backing beats, but you’d be surprised just how difficult that is to pull off, especially since the arrangements often deconstruct the songs in surprising new ways. The blips and beats are treated as the songs’ essential skeletons, over which Reznor and company build new beasts. Most effective is the extended ending to “The Day the World Went Away,” a slowly cascading powerhouse of simplicity.

Reznor has always excelled at giving cold mechanical backdrops a flesh and blood treatment, and on stage he’s just as good as in the studio. The live disc brings the rage, as Reznor screams his way through “Terrible Lie,” “Wish,” “Gave Up,” “Head Like a Hole,” rare b-side “Suck” and “Starfuckers Inc.” like an unhinged demon. Surprisingly, though, he also carries off quieter, more orchestrated material like “The Great Below” with grace. Closing track “Hurt” (also the closer on Spiral) is just as effective live as on disc. Far from the studied precision of his studio works, And All That Could Have Been gives us a raw, fully human Reznor we’ve never heard before.

If you’re going to buy this thing, though, you need to get the two-disc version, because the second album here is the biggest and most pleasant surprise. It’s called Still, and it’s 43 minutes of stripped-down, piano-centric reflection. Reznor steps out from behind the curtain here and invites us to gaze at him, cracked and broken, with nowhere to hide. It’s the most affecting work he’s ever released, and the most effective deconstruction of his signature sound.

Still opens with a piano-and-vocal take on “Something I Can Never Have” that sets the tone – sparse instrumentation and naked vocals that crack and falter with emotion. Similar takes on “The Fragile” and “The Day the World Went Away” work just as well, and even when he adds pitter-pattering drums and synths to “The Becoming,” the tone remains somber. Still contains five new songs, four of which are gorgeous instrumentals that explore the territory Reznor mined with The Fragile‘s mood pieces. It’s capped off with new song “And All That Could Have Been,” a worthy addition.

Thematically, Still revisits every phase of the NIN trip so far with the kind of reflective hindsight that comes with age and distance. If Reznor has indeed been writing a strange form of autobiography, then Still is him looking back with regret. It’s tinged with a sadness that’s only hinted at in previous works, and it sustains that mood throughout. Closing track “Leaving Hope” may be the most emotional piece of instrumental music you’re likely to hear. That and the rest of Still serve as a perfect capstone to what hopefully is only the first chapter. The live album is just the bow on top. Still is the prize, another grand surprise in a grand and surprising career.

Next week, Dream Theater.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I had a freak-out in New York last weekend.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve experienced one of those – a genuine, synapse-collapsing meltdown. I was meant to have been visiting a friend, with whom I’ve recently reconnected after seven years. Everything was set – on my way to Maryland, I would stop in for a few days, staying at her apartment on First Avenue. I had decent directions (given to me by a nifty individual who doubles as a Presbyterian minister and a sex therapist), I had a plan, and I thought I had control over my biggest fear.

You see, the only thing in the world I’m really afraid of is other people. I’m not scared to fly, I’m just frightened of the other people on the plane. Likewise, I have no fear of driving, but I’m terrified of the other people on the road. This phobia has mutated over time to provide me with a pathological fear of cities. I just hate them. I especially hate driving in them – so many other drivers, all with divergent destinations, and none of them give two rat’s shits whether you make it to yours alive.

Of all the cities I’ve driven through, New York City is the worst. At any given time, there are millions of people trying to navigate roads that are only wide enough to accommodate two horse-driven carriages. The streets themselves seem to harbor a dislike of drivers, particularly those unfamiliar with the city. They appear to twist in upon themselves, providing only one-way outlets going the opposite way one wishes to proceed. It’s impossible to retrace your steps in New York, as I discovered on Saturday.

One thing you need to understand about me for this story to make sense – I don’t have a cell phone. I hate those things, too. I find them inherently annoying whenever I encounter them, and consider them only useful in emergency situations. Despite my tendency to find myself in emergency situations in which a cell phone could be extremely useful, I haven’t broken down and bought one yet, and I’m not sure I ever will. So don’t email me asking why I didn’t just call someone. That’s why.

So, okay, I arrive in New York at about 3:30 in the afternoon, only about three and a half hours later than I intended in the first place. (Late night, oversleeping, late start in the morning, etc.) My first destination is the Triboro Bridge, a teeming disaster area of semi-mobile vehicles, crammed into five tiny lanes. I entered, by necessity, on the left side of the bridge, and had to somehow maneuver my way through three lanes of backed-up traffic to get to the right lane, which turned into my exit in roughly a quarter-mile. To top that off, everyone else on the bridge seemingly needed to get over into whatever lane I was inhabiting at the time as well, and most of them just turned towards my vehicle without a second thought.

I think I almost died four times.

Still and all, I got over the bridge and onto FDR Drive. My directions then specified that I was to look for an exit sign with no number or street name – one just marked “Exit.” That’s the kind of city New York is. Needless to say, about an hour later, I was completely lost, with no idea of how I’d managed to get where I was, or how to get back. (See previous comments re: retracing one’s steps.) Depressingly, there appeared no place to park, either – all the spaces were taken, sometimes twice, and traffic wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. Plus, given my fear of other people, I wasn’t about to leave my car anywhere unattended.

At one point, I asked a friendly police officer (who was risking his life directing traffic) how to get to First Avenue. He told me to “take a left on Centre Street and then a right on HOW-ston.” At least, that’s how it sounded to me, so I asked him to repeat that last street name, and he said it again: “HOW-ston.” When I asked him to spell it, he looked at me as if I had just crawled up from the evolutionary muck. “It’s spelled ‘Houston,'” he grunted. “Well then,” I thought, “why in fuck’s name didn’t you just SAY ‘Houston’ in the first place.” I didn’t say that, however.

No, I was just about in the throes of my freak-out, which came on full force when I took that right onto HOW-ston and found that it didn’t quite lead me where I wanted to go. The next hour or so is a blur of sharp turns, near-misses and hyperventilation, and when I stumbled upon the way out – blessed Route 495, which must lead to Route 95 – I jumped at it. I even pulled into a gas station and asked the fine gentleman behind the counter which 495 (east or west) would get me back to Route 95.

“East,” he said.

“Right-o,” I replied.

Half an hour later, I was screaming at my mental picture of that fine gentleman, calling him a filthy cocksucking liar. I kept thinking that the road would loop around, perhaps, or connect in some way south of the city, but no. I ended up pulling off into another gas station, and meeting the nicest New Yorker ever, who gave me a map and directed me to the Cross Island Expressway, which hooks up with 95 after the Verrazzano Bridge. I thanked him and hurried back, thinking I might give the city another shot.

Of course, the Expressway was backed up for miles and miles, so I didn’t reach 95 until 8:30 p.m. The decision to just go south to Maryland was a pretty easy one – I really couldn’t spend another minute in that city. By the time I hit the highway, I was a twittering, shaking, sweaty mess. I know I’m going to have to get over this at some point, but my fear of cities is so great that I can barely breathe when I’m in one. I don’t think I’m afraid of other people individually so much as in nameless, faceless groups – which extends to religions and political organizations as well. They scare the shit out of me.

Naturally, my friend was frightened out of her gourd that I might have died along the way, and I didn’t catch up with her until about 11 p.m. If the fear and anger in her voice wasn’t enough convince me that I need a cell phone, I don’t think anything will be. Over the last few days, I have found myself glancing with interest at Verizon Wireless stores as I walk past, so we shall see.

As a hopeful epilogue to this stupid little tale, however, I made my first tentative drives into Baltimore this week, and they didn’t go as badly as I expected. Baltimore is like a slightly larger Portland, Maine, in that people seem to all be going the same direction most of the time. Plus, it has the biggest freaking Barnes and Noble I have ever seen, and I’m really looking forward to driving back in and checking it out.

I’m right now in the midst of trying to find a job, which is why this column contains nothing of substance. Plus, this week saw a complete absence of noteworthy new music, which will hopefully be rectified by next week, when Jeff Tweedy’s Loose Fur project hits, as well as Billy Corgan’s debut with his new band, Zwan. In the meantime, drive safe, and try to think about the other drivers now and again. Especially if you live in a big city.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So I was going to start this column with a justification for its lateness and a giant rant against technology, both of which were precipitated by my computer dying on me. My two-year-old typewriter-with-a-TV has decided, all on its own, that the hard drive upon which I’ve placed everything I’ve written since 1999 (including every one of these columns) doesn’t actually exist. I can’t convince it otherwise. It’s probably something small and stupid, like a loose wire or a broken needle, but my Circuit City service contract only covers replacements. Hence, an all-new hard drive will be on its way to me in a day or two, I hope.

So yeah, I was going to start in about how everything breaks and dies just when you’ve become dependent on it. And then a real person died, and that sort of put things into perspective.

The biggest problem with being a comic book fan (which I am) is that no one’s ever heard of the art form’s best and brightest. Being the most famous and influential comic book artist is like being the world’s greatest tile grouter. In tile grouting circles, you’re a superstar. To the rest of the world, you’re kind of weird for thinking that tile grouting is a big deal.

All of which is a way of saying that when a great comic book artist, a true architect of the modern form, passes on, no one but the fans really notices. John Buscema was one of those, though – a true architect of the modern form. He worked with Stan Lee to bring Marvel Comics its heart and soul, especially on a title called Silver Surfer that was epic and small at the same time, mostly because of Buscema’s art. Every comic book artist who’s ever tried to depict the massive and world-spanning on a human scale has used Buscema as a guideline, and they’ll all tell you so.

I don’t want to eulogize the guy too much, because I didn’t know him. He did, however, have a lasting impact on my childhood, whether I knew it or not at the time. I also figured that since no major news organizations were going to memorialize him, I’d better say something before another superb artist passed into the ether without notice.

Rest in peace, John.

* * * * *

I’m playing catch-up this week with a brief review of an album I never got around to last year. I say ‘brief” because my lack of computer is forcing me to type this at the office, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do non-newspaper work for very long while my bosses are roaming about. By the time they read this, if they do, I hope it’ll be too late.

I first heard dada the same way most people did, I’m sure. I caught their novelty hit “Dizz Knee Land” on the radio in ’92 and laughed my throat raw. If you’re unfamiliar with it, ‘Dizz Knee Land” is a clever send-up of those Disney World commercials that ran in the early ’90s. (You know the ones: “Jeffrey Dahmer, you’ve just carved up three innocent people and ate them, what are you going to do next?” ‘I’m going to Disney World!”) “Dizz Knee Land” was full of anti-social behavior (“I just robbed a grocery store, I just flipped off President George, I’m going to Dizz Knee Land…”), but it broke the first rule of career longevity: never lead with a novelty song.

True to the rule, dada never had another hit. They did, however, produce four albums that ranged in quality from very good to superb, without another novelty tune in the bunch. Guitarist Michael Gurley in particular established himself as a singular talent, one of only a handful of modern guitarists with his own signature sound. You can always tell a Gurley tune from the guitar tone. Try saying that about the guy from Godsmack.

If any one thing characterized dada, it was their unwillingness to be pigeonholed. They tried everything, from three-chord jams to complex Beatlesque pop to haunting blues-influenced showcases. The trio (also including bassist Joie Calo and drummer Phil Leavitt) was always best, however, when they relied on nothing but their chemistry as a unit, stripping down to three instruments and a voice and somehow filling the room with a huge yet minimalist sound.

As you’ve probably gathered by the frequent use of past tense verbs in this column, dada broke up a while ago. Well-researched readers have probably also surmised that the CD I didn’t get to last year is the debut from Gurley’s new band, Butterfly Jones. This album has sold like wool sweaters to sheep, which is to say not very well, and that’s not unexpected, but unfortunate. Butterfly Jones’ Napalm Springs (love that title) is, at the very least, a better-than-average dada album, and ought to be doing better than it is.

Alas, the American public seems to be allergic to smart, well-constructed pop music, which is what Napalm Springs offers in spades. Gurley’s guitar tone remains enticingly original, and drummer Leavitt is in Butterfly Jones as well, so it’s almost a dada reunion. Instead of the minimalist approach his former band took, though, Gurley has widened the sound here without oversaturating it, making room for strings and horns and the sampled sounds of Soul Coughing keyboardist Mark de Gli Antoni. It’s a mainstreaming move, to be sure, but it works well with the material.

And the material is almost entirely musically excellent. To name three, “Suicide Bridge” is another hit that will never be, “Blue Roses” is sweet and subtle, and “Alright” recasts Gurley’s lead guitar in a similar setting to “Dorina,” off of dada’s debut, and lets him loose. Throughout, Gurley’s voice floats atop these tunes, and even though Joie Calo isn’t around to harmonize with him, the result is pretty close to dada’s most melodic work.

The weak point here, as always with Gurley, is the lyrics. On Napalm Springs they jump from witty to wretched fairly often, a weakness that also marred the final dada album. “Wonder” is almost laughable, with its “where did we come from, where are we going to” pseudo-metaphysics. “When People Are Mean” also suffers from its kindergarten-level moralization: “When people are mean, when people are bad, it usually means that somewhere inside they are sad…”

But then Gurley whomps you with “The Systematic Dumbing Down of Terry Constance Jones,” a smirking depiction of pop culture marketing’s effect on the American female. This tune’s a serious prize, one of the several instances on Napalm Springs where the lyrics rise to the challenge of the music. Another is ‘It’s Cool Dude,” which could have been a throwaway and ends up surprisingly affecting.

Gurley is obviously fishing for a hit with this album, but he hasn’t watered himself down to attain chart status. He’s just sent his considerable songwriting skill into more acoustic and melodic waters. While Napalm Springs may not please every dada fan, especially those looking for more of their three-piece rock band sound, those who miss Michael Gurley’s voice and guitar would be well advised to seek it out. If you’ve never heard the man outside of “Dizz Knee Land” before, he’s created a good starting point here. Butterfly Jones is, in many ways, dada for the masses.

You lucky masses.

Next time, probably a round-up of several year-end hip-hop releases. After that, new stuff. Yaaaay!

See you in line Tuesday morning.

It’s fitting that as I embark upon my first column about the mighty Phish, the band lands in the news here in Massachusetts.

Maybe you heard about it. At a recent show up here, the band brought out a man they introduced as Tom Hanks, the final punchline in a lengthy gag regarding their song “Wilson.” (You can probably figure it out.) Obviously, it wasn’t Tom Hanks, but rather a similar-looking relative of one of the band members, but the local media seized upon the story, touting Hanks’ appearance with typical celebrity-hungry fervor. The retractions the next day were funny, and it struck me that such a ruse is right out of the Frank Zappa Screw-With-Your-Audience Handbook.

I’m not sure what level of Phish fandom I can rightfully claim. As of this writing, I’ve never seen them live. I have all the albums, of course, and all of the officially released live recordings, but except for a few gifts from friends hooked up to the tape-trading circuit, I’ve never been into their bootleg network. And I’ve always admired them for what they took from Frank Zappa as opposed to what they got from the Grateful Dead, meaning I’m more into their arrangement and technical skills than their improvisation and sense of community.

Make no mistake, what Phish didn’t get from the Dead they got from Zappa – the jazz-rock tendencies, the nonsensical lyrics uttered in a low voice that dances all around the pitch, the prolific and diverse nature of their catalog. Which is the bigger influence is an argument for another time, but one that would certainly have its share of evidence on both sides. F’rinstance, Zappa played and recorded several songs from his 1984 rock opera Thing-Fish long before unveiling the whole thing. Likewise, Phish have Gamehendge, a lengthy and fantastical rock opera that they’ve never recorded, but have played pieces of in concert for as long as they’ve been a band. (“Wilson,” “AC/DC Bag” and “Punch You In the Eye,” to name a few.)

There is one thing, however, that they took from the Dead that elevates them above most bands playing today. It’s not the quality of the musicians – Zappa’s bands had some of the most technically amazing players you will ever be fortunate enough to hear, but they were lorded over by Frank himself, conducting and dictating the sound and style according to his own compositional ear. Plus, as Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio’s side project Oysterhead (with Primus’ Les Claypool and The Police’s Stewart Copeland) showed, you can put the best musicians together and still not achieve that spark that turns them into a band.

Phish is a band. In fact, they’ve often gone beyond band, playing like some 16-limbed, four-throated, 800-pound monstrosity. Like the core members of the Dead, the four Phish guys have spent so many years listening to each other play that they’ve turned it into a form of mind-meld. In their best moments, the four musicians not only anticipate what each other will do next, but challenge each other to reach further into new directions.

This bold exploration is fascinating if you’re a musician, but can be understandably tiresome if you’re not one. I think Phish recognizes this as well, which is why their studio and live outputs have been so different of late. Critics and fans have harped upon every release since Hoist for not capturing the sound of the band live, but that hasn’t been the point for many years. The last four studio releases have been small affairs, consisting of 12 or so short, melodic songs without much of the grand spectacle of the live shows. (Naturally, there’s the LivePhish series and the Hampton Comes Alive box set, which provide all the live spectacle one could need.)

Which is why Phish’s return to the studio is so surprising. The foursome took a two-year hiatus from touring and recording to pursue side projects, most of them fruitful – Anastasio had a solo album and tour, keyboardist Page McConnell led the jazzy Vida Blue, and bassist Mike Gordon recorded with guitar hero Leo Kottke. When they reconvened this summer to rehearse for their first tour since 2000, they liked their new material so much that they pressed the record button, and four days later emerged with Round Room, their new album.

What’s surprising is that Round Room seems to go against the philosophy of the recent studio direction. At 78 minutes, it’s their longest album since their debut, the epic Junta, and if it does nothing else, the album certainly captures the sound of Phish playing live. It all but shuns the finessed sheen of their last album, Farmhouse, in favor of rough edges and extended jams.

So why am I so disappointed with it? I suppose it’s because I’ve been spoiled by the LivePhish series, especially the recent round of Halloween shows (vols. 13-16). This series selectively showcases only the best nights of the Phish experience, and as any fan of improvisational live music can tell you, there’s never any guarantee that you’ll be seeing the band on one of their best nights. By recording Round Room live in four days, Phish rolled the dice, trusting that these four days would find them completely in tune with each other. As you may have guessed, they didn’t, at least not entirely.

There are four extended jams on Round Room, each approaching or breaking the 10-minute mark, and while I like them fine, I don’t consider them the best examples of what this band can do. Opener “Pebbles and Marbles” starts with a swing beat, then escalates masterfully over its 11 minutes to become the most successful of the longer tunes. Also excellent is “Walls of the Cave,” although neither of those songs has the spark of, for instance, the version of “Chalk Dust Torture” on LivePhish Vol. 2. Less successful is “Waves,” the pseudo-epic closer, which actually finds McConnell fumbling for notes.

It’s the remainder of the record, however, which could have used the most editing. As usual, the shorter numbers reach for simplicity, and often end up with banality. Of the shorter numbers, “Anything But Me” stands out as a winner. It’s soft and emotional, in the same vein as “Fast Enough for You” from Rift, still my favorite Phish record. Unfortunately, we also get drivel like “Mexican Cousin,” which I never have to hear again as long as I live.

Anastasio may not be the best singer on the planet, but he sounds like Jeff Buckley when compared with Gordon, who gets two songs all to himself. It doesn’t help that his round robin title track doesn’t really go anywhere after the first 30 seconds or so. But it hardly matters who’s singing some of these songs, since they weren’t given time to gestate beyond the sketch stage. “46 Days,” for example, made for a nifty three minutes on Saturday Night Live, but doesn’t really evolve beyond the repetitive chorus phrase (“46 days and the coal ran out”) and the one-chord stomp of the main riff.

I know I’m asking a lot of a bunch of songs that weren’t road-tested first, but Phish’s return should have been better than this. The best of the band’s live material starts in the stratosphere and gradually ascends into orbit. Most of Round Room never even gets off the ground. It would be an interesting experiment to hear the band re-record this album after bringing the songs out on tour to watch them grow up, but for now, the album is a mixed bag that feels too rushed and too rough. Much of Zappa’s later material suffered from the same maladies, and I hope Phish has enough sense not to emulate their hero that closely.

Next week, Prince, I hope.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I spent New Year’s Eve with someone I’d never met, in a place I’d never been.

If you live in Sturgis, Michigan, I’m sorry. I’m apologizing in the same way that I would apologize to a casual acquaintance that I happened to see at his or her worst – vomiting his or her guts out, let’s say, or shaking his or her booty to Prince songs well past his or her bedtime. Well, I caught you doing the Prince thing, Sturgis, and perhaps the vomiting thing, though I didn’t actually see it, but might have if I looked hard enough. Point is, I’d bet I’ve seen you at your most embarrassing worst, Sturgis, Michigan, and for that, I’m sorry.

The whole night was surreal, in the best way, actually. If you’ve ever shouted theology back and forth with a stranger in a crowded bowling alley-slash-bar on New Year’s Eve, then you know what I mean. You’ve been there. It was one of those end-of-the-year things that leads people to believe that the coming 12 months are just full of possibility, and that anything can happen.

Three or so hours after midnight, it did. I sideswiped Bambi with my car.

There were three of them, all right, and I missed the first two (full-grown adult deer) and couldn’t avoid the last one (a smaller, more frightened baby deer). Happily, the little guy got up and hobbled away seconds after I struck it, but my car remains a frightful mess. So there I am, at three in the morning, by the side of the road, thinking all sorts of thoughts about karmic retribution, and entertaining the notion that for this to have happened three hours into the new year isn’t exactly a sunny omen for 2002. And suddenly, this big, wide grin appears on my face and I laugh myself sick at the absurdity of the whole thing.

So far, it’s been that kinda year.

*****

But enough with the looking back. Onward, I say.

Last year, the tone-setters for the year’s musical quality were set early. This column’s choice for number one, in fact, Duncan Sheik’s Phantom Moon, came out in February, preceded by Jonatha Brooke’s top 10 entry Steady Pull. By mid-March, I just knew it was going to be a good year.

If 2002 follows the same path, then the relative excellence or suckiness of January and February’s releases should give us some idea if subtle art will reign, or if Eminem has a shot at the top spot again. The slate isn’t too full, but it isn’t too bad, either. Here’s what I’m looking forward to:

First out of the gate this year is Michael Roe, the 77s guitarist, who’s releasing an instrumental disc called Orbis on January 10 or so. I say “or so” because it’s only available through his website (www.77s.com) and they’re sometimes fast and loose with release dates over there. Regardless, this is the second installment in Roe’s ambient series, begun years ago with the just-re-released Daydream. Should be interesting to hear him play guitar in an unfamiliar musical setting.

By the way, the 77s Christmas EP, Happy Chrimbo, was wonderful. Probably the best rendition of “Blue Christmas” I’ve ever heard.

On January 22, Bad Religion storms back with an album called The Process of Belief. It had better be better than their last one, The New America, which was all but ruined by an ill-fitting collaboration with producer Todd Rundgren. This one’s been getting some nice notices, but I’ll reserve judgment until it hits stores.

Also on the 22nd is a double CD from New England’s best and most original band, Cerberus Shoal. Before their legendary six-man lineup split in 2000, the group made a trilogy of spooky, lush and mostly instrumental albums. The first two (Homb and Crash My Moon Yacht) are all but indescribable, floating on waves of ornate instrumentation and surprising melodies. With the band having completely restructured itself, I had given up hope of ever hearing the two-disc finale, Mr. Boy Dog, but lo and behold, North East Indie Records is finally releasing it. If it’s anything like the first two installments, it will be bizarre and beautiful.

The following week, January 29, sees another double-disc record, this time from Dream Theater. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence features a 43-minute title track that takes up all of disc two. Undoubtedly, the album will be chock full of more physically exhausting music that no other band on the planet can play, just like the rest of their catalog. Reportedly, it’s more melodic than they’ve been in the past, too.

The Chemical Brothers also return on the 29th with Come With Us, an unpromising title for what promises to be another evolution in this electronic rock duo’s sound. The Brothers have never stood still, and no two of their discs sound the same. Looking forward to this one.

February 12 sees a new one from Chris Isaak, which is sadly not titled As Seen On TV, like I was hoping, but Always Got Tonight. VH-1 has just started re-broadcasting The Chris Isaak Show, minus the nudity and swearing, of course. If you don’t get Showtime, though, it’s at least an opportunity to see this thing. Hopefully this album will revive Isaak’s flagging music career, but if not, he’s always got his day job.

Me’Shell Ndegeocello has titled her fourth album Cookie: The Antropological Mix Tape. Apparently, it brings the funk, something some people thought was missing from her last one, Bitter. I wasn’t one of those people, so we’ll see if Cookie leaves me cold on February 12.

Believe it or not, Neil Finn, formerly of Crowded House fame, has had a successful solo career across the pond, especially in his native New Zealand. He’s released two solo discs (one of which, Try Whistling This, barely made a dent over here) and a live record to much acclaim. Well, Nettwerk Records has stepped up and is releasing both the live album (called Seven Worlds Collide) and the second solo disc (called One Nil) in the States. Seven Worlds hits on February 26, and One Nil comes your way in April. This guy is a vastly underappreciated songwriter, and it would be nice, however unlikely, if he got his due in America.

Finally, the singer we love to hate to love, Alanis Morissette, returns on February 26 with album number three, Under Rug Swept. The big twist this time? No Glen Ballard. Morissette went out on her own, and we’ll see next month what she came up with.

I’ve got some catching up to do (still haven’t heard that Wu-Tang album), so the next two weeks should be filled with 2001 releases I just didn’t get around to. Thanks to everyone who wrote me regarding the Top 10 List. I’m still interested in your thoughts on the year that was, so send ‘em on in.

Year two – here we go.

See you in line Tuesday morning.